Monthly Archives: July 2016

Zika virus epidemic: Africa should not be neglected – “It is plausible that Zika virus outbreaks occurred in recent years in Africa and remained unnoticed because of the very low capacities for detection of emergent conditions in most of the continent,” this Lancet piece notes. Now that the virus and its devastating consequences have made […]

DURBAN, South Africa – The average number of monthly tuberculosis diagnoses among the HIV patients increased twenty-fold, and pediatric TB was diagnosed for the first time at a busy Malawi hospital after a pilot intervention provided community health workers already experienced in HIV screening and care linkage with a one-day training to learn to screen for tuberculosis, […]

When doing the right thing is the best thing, Part 2 DURBAN, South Africa – In another example of what happens when proven HIV interventions are made appropriately available, final results from the Partners Demonstration Project presented here on Wednesday showed access to immediate HIV treatment for a person living with HIV, along with access to […]

DURBAN, South Africa – The 11.7 million medical circumcisions delivered to prevent HIV since research in Kenya and Uganda definitively proved the 60 percent protective value of the one time intervention in 2007, will have prevented an estimated 335,000 HIV infections by 2025. “That’s if stopped now,” Julie Samuelson of the World Health Organization said in […]

When doing the right thing is the best thing, Part 1 DURBAN, South Africa – Do the UNAIDS goals of diagnosing 90 percent of those with HIV, treating 90 percent of them, and suppressing the virus to undetectable levels in 90 percent of those all by 2020 sound daunting to you? How about doing it in […]

DURBAN, South Africa – When Bill Gates came to Durban Wednesday for a discussion of progress with physician scientists researching the next HIV responses, the Microsoft founder recounted his first visit to South Africa in 1997, when his focus was still on his business and, he says, “closing the digital divide.” The divide he discovered instead in Soweto, […]

“No human being should be left behind” Sir Elton John DURBAN, South Africa – The International AIDS Alliance and the Global Forum on MSM & HIV will receive the first grants under a $10 million fund launched by the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to open and ensure access […]

DURBAN, South Africa – About 30 percent of TB/HIV patients die within 12 months of starting TB treatment. Efforts to reduce the risk of death among these patients has focused primarily on accelerating start of HIV treatment. In a trial discussed Wednesday, researchers explored whether changes in TB treatment could improve the odds of survival for these patients. The […]

The following is a guest post from Ashley Gibbs and David Mbote who serve on Health Policy Plus (HP+), a USAID- and PEPFAR-funded project. To reach the ambitious targets of the global HIV response, including universal treatment and viral suppression, we must first reach all populations with lifesaving HIV services. Unfortunately, HIV programming for gay and […]

Including recommendations that injected drugs with permanent debilitating side effects not be included in longer treatment regimens against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, and the inclusion of the most […]